1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to multimedia. More specifically, the present invention discloses a method of enhancing movies, video, or other multimedia in order to provide users with a more rewarding viewing experience.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Film is a popular form of art or entertainment. The affect on movie-goers is dramatic when movies are viewed in a cinema or movie theater. When movies are made or reproduced, care is taken to ensure that the lighting, brightness, and contrast of the film is suitable for the dim or dark theater setting. However, problems result when these movies are transferred from film to digital formats such as video compact disc (VCD) or digital video disc (DVD).
It is a common problem that movies look too dark when watched on televisions (TV), cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors, or liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. Because many movies are intended for playback in a relatively dark environment, such as a movie theater, video usually appears to be lacking in brightness and contrast when played back in a relatively well-lit environment, such as regular room lighting. A conventional way to compensate for this problem is to change the display device's brightness level and/or gamma correction strength. However, an increase in brightness will typically result in a lack of blackness. Additionally, an increase in gamma will typically result in too little contrast in bright regions and too much contrast in dark regions of the movie.
Refer to FIG. 1, which is a graph illustrating the effect of increasing brightness of a video signal. As shown in FIG. 1, the original brightness level is represented as a straight line from 0 to 255. In contrast as shown by the adjusted output line, increasing the brightness results in a more dramatic increase in brightness of darker regions than in areas which are already relatively bright. As a result, the darkest output in no longer black enough and the overall video output appears washed out.
Refer to FIG. 2, which is a graph illustrating the effect of increasing gamma of a video signal. In FIG. 2, the original gamma is represented as a straight line from 0 to 255. By increasing the gamma, the output which is brighter ends up having too little contrast and the output which is darker ends up having too much contrast. Therefore, the picture quality is not optimal.
Therefore, there is need for an improved method of enhancing movies or video which results in a high quality video output and provides viewers with a rewarding viewing experience.